King Khan revels in stardom

The 48-year-old is happy that the audience liked the Farah Khan directorial, which minted a record INR 45 million on its opening day. 

Since the 1990s, Shahrukh Khan’s movies have been creating fireworks at the box office during the Diwali festival. Remaining true to tradition, the superstar’s latest Happy New Year (HNY) continued the trend by turning out to be a money-spinner.

King Khan’s HNY released a day after the festival of lights and he says superstition has got nothing to do with it. “It is good to release films on a holiday,” he adds. “You get that extra benefit of a day off… I am lucky. The movies (that released during Diwali) have done well, but I am not superstitious like that. Any day is good if I get a good holiday,” said Khan whose movies like Baazigar (1993), Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Dil To Pagal Hai (1997), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Om Shanti Om (2007) all released on Diwali were runaway hits.

Riding high on the success of Happy New Year, the 48-year-old is happy that the audience liked the Farah Khan directorial, which minted a record INR 45 million on the opening day of its release. “I was expecting a lot of people to watch the film as it was a holiday. And the number is indicative of the fact that so many people came to see the film,” said Shahrukh.

“If they came and didn’t like it, it would’ve been sad. I’ve gotten to understand that 70 to 80 per cent of the audience liked it as a family film,” said Shahrukh, whose company Red Chillies Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. produced the film. While some critics have given positive reviews, quite a few panned it, Shahrukh is unperturbed by the critics’ mixed response to the film because his aim is to entertain masses, not just classes, he says. “I respect their views but I don’t make films for such a niche audience of five to seven people. I try to make films for larger spectrum of people,” he said.

The film’s success also spells fortune for its ensemble cast  — Deepika Padukone, Abhishek Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Boman Irani, Sonu Sood and Vivaan Shah. Despite the success of Happy New Year, work for the star, doesn’t stop as he will be tied up with Fan and Raees in the coming months.

While masala entertainers mostly click with the audience, asked if he would like to feature in any Hollywood adaptation, he said: “I’d rather do a film that is more original but if somebody comes up to me with a story and says it’s an adaptation of Romeo and Juliet and if I like the film, I would do it.”

He also shared that he likes Hollywood films like Bad Boys and Men In Black. 

Published in The Express Tribune, October 29th, 2014.

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